


Illegal Fireworks

by pennysparrow



Series: A crooked politician? Yeah but that ain't news no more [12]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Politics, Crossover, Current Events, Don't copy to another site, Drinking, F/M, Fourth of July, Gen, Mild Language, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 21:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19484287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparrow/pseuds/pennysparrow
Summary: Holidays bring out complicated feelings in most people. Though that list of holidays doesn't usually include the Fourth of July on it. Although maybe it should.





	Illegal Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

> I have VERY complicated feelings about the Fourth of July this year and wanted to try and be optimistic so uh this happened?

There was nothing like the sound of illegal fireworks to make a girl feel patriotic. Katherine sipped her drink as she kicked her feet, skimming the water and looking out over the Long Island Sound. The whiskey was stolen from her father’s stock and the fireworks? Well Kath wasn’t sure where Race and Spot had gone to get them. It was too light just yet, but they were putting a few up to test so Katherine looked out across the water rather than at the lazy pyrotechnics behind her.

Early that morning she’d ridden the subway to Brooklyn where Racetrack and Spot had found a little apartment for themselves. Her backpack was loaded in the trunk of Race’s Toyota POS next to a box of explosives. She was then squeezed into the backseat between Jack and Charlie, a fact she came to regret about 20 minutes into the drive out to Montauk and she began to wish she’d had the foresight to ride with Specs in his aunt’s borrowed minivan.

Medda had given them the keys and free reign to the tiny cabin she owned out on the end of Long Island for the holiday and then subsequent long weekend. So, Kath had swiped the booze, Spot and Race brought the fireworks, and the rest had brought food, food, and more food.

Now after a hot day filled with hot dogs and diving contests off the pier she was sitting on, Katherine was tired as the sun started its slow descent. She’d pulled her t-shirt and jean shorts back on over her swimsuit, but she almost regretted it as the fabric rubbed against the sunburn she’d foolishly gotten on her shoulders.

The boards behind her creaked but Kath didn’t move as someone settled next to her. “I was going to get a fire started and then thought testing Jack’s so-called survival skills by letting him do it would be funnier. But with Race running around with explosives I figured finding you would be better,” David said.

Kath huffed a laugh. “Well I’m drinking my sorrows away, so I don’t know if I’m the company you’d prefer right now.”

“Well I didn’t mention it at first, but part of my hasty retreat has to do with the fact that alcohol is highly flammable,” he joked, holding up an open cider. Kath snorted, shaking her head as he grinned.

They sunk back into contemplative silence and Kath took another sip from her glass, splashing her feet lightly as the headlines from the past year swirled through her head.

Sighing, Kath leaned her head against David’s shoulder. She lifted her glass out in a mock toast. “America.”

Picking up on the quote from her tone David clinked his bottle and responded, “America.”

Proximity to Jack and his love of the song had them mumbling thru the rest of the lyrics as footsteps could be heard coming up the dock again.

“We’ll open up a restaurant in Santa Fe,” Jack joined in as he settled on Katherine’s other side.

“Sunny Santa Fe would be- nice,” David grinned.

“We’ll open up a restaurant in Santa Fe, and leave New York to the roaches and mice,” Kath finished, a smile pulling at her lips.

“How’s the fire?” David asked dryly.

Jack let out a rush of air and flopped backwards, causing them to both laugh. “Your sister wisely kicked me off. Specs and Romeo are making margaritas.”

“Margaritas, s’more, and flames. Sounds like a brilliant combination,” Kath observed. The two boys laughed and she continued, “especially with this bunch.”

“Could be worse?” Jack tried, still talking to the sky. “We could all be significantly drunker already.”

As she giggled Katherine let herself lean back until she was lying next to Jack. She tugged on David’s shirt until he joined them.

“You think someone ought to be monitoring how much Racetrack and Spot have had if they’re the ones putting off the fireworks?” David mused.

“They’re dumbasses but they’re not stupid,” Jack said confidently.

“That isn’t comforting,” Kath snorted. Though they all knew what Jack had meant.

The three fell silent and the sounds of the water and their friends filled the space. She kicked her foot up, satisfied at the resulting splash. Lazily, she repeated the motion a few more times. Jack was humming through more from _RENT_ and Kath could hear David playing with his bottle against the dock.

In the stillness Katherine’s mind wound back to everything that was so wrong with the country she called her own. She felt her expression sour as she let out a grumble she hadn’t really been conscious of.

Jack’s fingers reached out and brushed hers where they still gripped her glass. She let go of it to grip his fingers, squeezing gently.

She took that as encouragement, settled comfortably between two of the people she trusted most in the world with the sun still warming her skin. The whiskey was making her thoughts slow and tongue lazy even as the words pushed themselves out.

“Great again,” she scoffed. “Like we were ever great to begin with.”

David hummed and Jack squeezed her hand again. She kicked up another splash before continuing.

“Is it awful to say that I want our country to be _good_? Like not this nationalist bullshit. This racist, repugnant ridiculousness,” she spat.

“How much have you had to drink?” Jack teased lightly. “You’re alliterating.”

David laughed.

Katherine rolled her head to shoot Jack a look. “Not as much as you’re implying, Mr. Kelly. As I was _saying_ , I believe that there is so much _good_ in this world and its people and especially here in our country but it’s just... buried! Under heaps and heaps of hate right now.”

“And it’s hard to celebrate the good that has come from our history in light of this,” David summed up, melancholy soaking into his tone. “Because yeah there’s loads of bad but there’s been some positives from the last two hundred odd years.”

“Yes!” Katherine called. She sighed, letting her feet hang into the water and going completely limp against the boards even though it stung her shoulders.

Jack tightened his grip on her hand and shook it slightly. He then raised it to his lips and pressed a soft, reassuring kiss against her knuckles.

“You know something?” David asked, some of his normal cautious optimism coming back into his voice.

“I know lots of things but I know you know more,” Jack said lightly though they all knew it couldn’t conceal the truth in his statement.

Katherine smiled. It slipped onto her lips almost without her consent, but she let it remain as David breathed a small laugh and Jack clicked his tongue in delight.

David continued as though Jack hadn’t said anything. “I think that I’d be much more lost and upset about the state of things if I weren’t involved with the Newsies. Pouring my energy into something that’s productive and actually _helps_ people.”

“I get that,” Jack said softly. “I think I’d be in a real dark place without you two. Running away from my problems rather than facing them and trying to use what I learn to help folks.”

There was the pop of another stray firework and the shouts and laughs of their friends. Katherine resumed kicking her feet, letting the splashes join the sounds of the oncoming dusk once again.

“That’s America,” she whispered. “Helping each other so that everyone can have life, liberty, and happiness.”

The trio laid there a while longer, watching as the sky above them was painted by the setting sun. Katherine’s mind still whirled but it had stopped focusing on the negatives of the past year and the current day and ran off with ideas of how to make the future better. After a while her phone beeped from her back pocket and she pushed herself up to see who had texted her.

The boys sat up too, curiosity getting the better of them. They both leaned over as she snorted at her phone.

“It’s Enjolras,” she said, reading the text, “he says Happy Treason Day.”

They all laughed and another firework went up behind them.

~

The crowds were almost overwhelming and he was officially hot and tired. They all were. Enjolras was glad that he’d talked the rest of their friends into going to Bahorel’s beach house for the day, especially since in the summer it was so rare they were all together and free, only Courfeyrac and Combeferre had managed to convince him to let them join in protesting outside the White House. On the condition that they would all be leaving the city in time to catch the fireworks that Bahorel and Feuilly were plotting.

Enjolras sighed and swiped his arm across his forehead, despairing the soup that was summer in D.C. He frowned down at his arm when he realized there was glitter on it, glitter that he had likely just spread across his face, that had probably been shed by Courf’s sign.

“I think I’m calling it,” he finally sighed. Combeferre wordlessly passed him a water bottle from his backpack and Enjolras smiled his thanks.

“Aw c’mon, I think I can get in one more ‘public dissent against the government is a proud American tradition’ to some disgruntled tourist,” Courfeyrac said gleefully.

Ferre snorted as he passed another water to Courf. “Because the last one went so well?” he asked dryly.

Enjolras was fairly sure that what Combeferre was referring to was the source of the glitter stuck to his skin. Courfeyrac had been waving his sign overenthusiastically and shouting Langston Hughes as a group of tourists walked away after calling them all ungrateful. His sign was a quote from the poem he’d yelled, “There’s never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this ‘homeland of the free.’” It just so happened to be spelled out in red, white, and blue glitter that had been detaching itself from the poster board all day.

Courf had finished taking his drink and turned back to defend himself to Combeferre. Enjolras sighed and stuck his own poster under his arm. “C’mon, we should probably cool off before we head to Bahorel’s. And I need to wash the glitter off apparently.”

He raised an eyebrow and Courf grinned innocently. “Well you don’t _have_ to. It is rather patriotic.”

Enjolras glanced over at Ferre as they began walking, seeing his longsuffering expression reflected by his friend.

“Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that as soon as we get home you’re changing into American flag swim trunks and tank top?” Ferre asked Courfeyrac.

“You’re forgetting the red, white, and blue bandana and sunglasses and sneakers,” Courfeyrac replied pleasantly.

“You were a frat boy in another life,” Combeferre informed him, failing to hide a smile.

“Bold of you to assume he’s not one in this one,” Enjolras said. His nerves were frayed after a day of less than stellar interactions in the heat. His best friends’ jokes were a welcome distraction though he feared that soon he’d become too tired to enjoy them and instead just be endlessly irritated.

Courfeyrac was scoffing as they left some of the crowds behind as they headed for the bus stop. “It’s a _service_ fraternity. Big difference.”

“You still wear letters,” Enjolras pointed out.

“Like you’re not wearing letters right now,” Courf responded smugly, spinning to poke Enjolras in the chest.

The red t-shirt was the one that Grantaire and Cosette had designed to help promote the ABC and had the letters in prominent display as a result. Enjolras rolled his eyes but let Courfeyrac have his win.

Combeferre had grown quiet as they joked and Enjolras chalked it up to exhaustion. They settled at the bus stop, resting their signs against their legs as they sat. Courfeyrac began the wait by chattering, speculating where Feuilly and Bahorel had gotten the fireworks from and how many they had and exactly how big they might be. It wasn’t long until this petered out and the three sat in silent, shared weariness from the day.

The city still buzzed around them from outside the bus shelter as people rushed about their Independence Day in the Nation’s Capital. Enjolras curled his lip up in distaste at this thought. The ridiculous pageantry of it all. The purposeful misreading of their history. The reactions of people to see them standing outside they symbol of the country’s leader and calling out the dark parts of the past and present on the day of the nation’s birth.

“Are you ok?” Ferre asked gently, breaking into his mental rant. “You look like you’re chewing someone out. Which I’ve seen you do for about six hours now; I know that look.”

Combeferre was smiling slightly, teasing him into opening up and Enjolras knew it. Instead, he waved his friend off. At least for now.

Before he could fall back into his thoughts though Courf was already talking. “I don’t know where the bus is but I’ve been meaning to play this all day and I can’t find my headphones so just deal.”

He’d pulled his phone out and already pressed play. The familiar guitar part began to ring out from the tiny speaker. Enjolras grinned as Billie Joe Armstrong sang a song written for two administrations ago and yet still summed up his current feelings in general pretty well.

In an impeccable bit of timing the bus arrived as the song ended and Courf was shoving his phone back into his pocket as they rose to their feet. It was full and the three wound up standing near the front, holding onto posters with one hand and the bar with the other. They didn’t chat when the buses were full like this, feeling like they were too close to other people and too far from each other, and Enjolras fell back into his earlier musings on the day.

By the time they got off in Georgetown Enjolras was having trouble keeping his thoughts to himself, aware that they’d been flitting across his face the whole ride by the looks his friends were shooting him. So, he took a deep breath and shared them.

“In conclusion,” he was saying by the time they’d reached The House, “I think that we overromanticize the American dream as a material thing. When in reality it’s this concept of freedom and liberty and equality, these very abstract notions even today, that is the _real_ American dream and its just being steamrolled by this purposefully warped interpretation.”

“Enj, I love you I really do and that was a great speech but uh, what’s your point?” Courf asked as he unlocked the front door.

Enjolras frowned, following Combeferre up the steps and closing the door behind himself. “I just have a lot of complicated feelings on the Fourth of July.”

“I think we all do,” Ferre held up the protest sign he was still carrying with a wry smile.

Enjolras smirked and headed to the kitchen to set his stuff down. “I _like_ liberty and freedom and equality-”

“We know,” Ferre interrupted.

Enjolras sent him a dark look. “-and I think that they were on to something in 1776. It was by no means perfect but it was a start and a decent one. I think that we’ve improved upon it greatly as the years have passed and we’ve learned and grown. Become more empathetic and less afraid to demand our places at the table.”

“There’s a but coming,” Courf smirked, passing out glasses of lemonade that Enjolras hadn’t noticed he’d poured.

Rolling his eyes and giving a sigh Enjolras continued, “But, we’ve lost our way and I hate it. I can’t express how much I hate it. And I just want us to get back on course and continuing making things better and making that American dream.”

“You radical,” Combeferre said flatly. Enjolras glared at him and he broke into a small smile. “You do know that we agree with you, we wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

“Yeah, we’d already be at the barbeque, tipsy and overstuffed on burgers,” Courfeyrac chimed in. “Actually, the only reason there is a barbeque at all is because _you_ insisted. I think your exact words were ‘No reason we all get yelled at by bigots on one of our few summer days together. Especially since it’s one of the last.’”

Enjolras hummed. They were right and they all knew it. They all sipped the lemonade and after a few minutes Enjolras pulled out his phone and typed out a short text to Katherine with a smile. He’d meant to send it sooner but this morning when he’d gotten up felt too early and then the day just got away from him. He was about to put his phone away, needing to jump in the shower and change yet, when it buzzed with her response.

Courf and Ferre sent him twin looks and he passed them the phone showing her response of “Proud to be a part of the revolution!”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Kath, Davey, and Jack are singing/quoting the [Santa Fe from RENT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgTOEp57QJ4) whose sentiments mirror Jack's Santa Fe in Newsies really well.  
> \- The Langston Hughes poem referenced is [Let America Be Again](https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again) and sums up my current feelings.  
> \- Courf subjects them all to listening to [American Idiot by Green Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_uujKuJMI) which, like most songs I reference or quote, is a personal favorite.


End file.
